An Ecumenical Service Between Catholics and Lutherans

By CHRISTINA ANDERSONOCT. 31, 2016

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An ecumenical service with Pope Francis at Lund Cathedral in Sweden on Monday. Some Catholics and Lutherans hoped his visit would be a step toward the two faiths allowing members to take communion in each other’s services. Credit Emil Langvad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

LUND, Sweden — Almost 500 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door, setting off more than a century of religious warfare and forever changing the practice of Christianity worldwide, Pope Francis on Monday urged atonement and Christian reconciliation.

Visiting the cities of Lund and Malmo in southern Sweden for a joint Catholic-Lutheran commemoration of the Reformation, the pope observed the 499th anniversary of Luther’s protest of the sale of indulgences by noting the beneficial impact it had on Catholicism.

“With gratitude we acknowledge that the Reformation helped give greater centrality to sacred Scripture in the church’s life,” the pope said in a joint declaration at Lund Cathedral with Bishop Munib A. Younan, the head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and the president of the Lutheran World Federation.

The trip, which kicked off a year of events leading up to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, was announced in January, but it was no less striking for those who listened to the pope. Sweden played a pivotal and troubling role in Protestant and Catholic history. From the 16th century, Catholics were persecuted and even put to death in Sweden. As recently as 1951, Catholics were barred from becoming doctors, teachers and nurses, and Catholic convents were banned until the 1970s.

Some Catholics and Lutherans, especially those whose families are intermingled, hoped that the event would produce a concrete step toward the two churches’ allowing their members to take communion in each other’s worship services. In their joint declaration, Pope Francis and Bishop Younan acknowledged the divide, but said only that they were working toward a resolution through dialogue.

“We experience the pain of those who share their whole lives, but cannot share God’s redeeming presence at the Eucharistic table,” the declaration said. “We long for this wound in the body of Christ to be healed. This is the goal of our ecumenical endeavors, which we wish to advance, also by renewing our commitment to theological dialogue.”

The Lutheran World Federation was founded in Lund in 1947, in an effort to unite churches after World War II. One of the main obstacles to relations between Lutherans and Roman Catholics was bridged in 1999, when the Vatican and the federation signed a joint declaration on the doctrine of justification, a core belief about God’s forgiveness of sins.

Francis was the first pope to visit Sweden in 27 years, and only the second pope to visit the Scandinavian country. In Lund, he met with King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.

“We, too, must look with love and honesty at our past, recognizing error and seeking forgiveness,” Francis said.

The prayer service in Lund was watched by about 10,000 people who packed Malmo Arena, about 14 miles away, where Caritas and the Lutheran World Service, humanitarian arms of the two churches, pledged to work together for peace and justice.

Teresa Jodar, 58, who lives in Stockholm but is a native of Valencia, Spain, said she had taken the train from Stockholm to Malmo in the morning to bear witness.

“This is a historic event,” she said. “I am a Catholic. We are not celebrating the Reformation. That was a sad separation. But we are celebrating taking a step closer. It is wonderful that we can work together instead of thinking about all of the differences that separate us.”

Ms. Jodar said she planned to stay for an All Saints’ Day Mass that the pope will celebrate on Tuesday in Malmo for an estimated 19,000 people.

Her friend Luisa Hugosson, 67, a native of Colombia, chimed in. “The pope’s visit is good for Lutherans and Catholics,” Ms. Hugosson said. “We are living in a new time, and we must be open and show respect.”

Carmen Godawszky, 71, sat with three friends on a train from Stockholm to Malmo, and they reflected on the pope’s message urging countries in Europe to open their doors to migrants.

“Of course, we can’t be against that,” Mrs. Godawszky said. “My husband came to Sweden as a refugee from Hungary in 1956. Everyone has been a refugee at one point or another. Just think of all the Swedes who moved to the U.S.A. because they didn’t have food or money.”

Although Sweden is predominantly Lutheran, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockholm counts 113,000 members in 44 parishes throughout the country.

Anders Arborelius, who converted to Catholicism when he was 20, is the country’s first Catholic bishop of Swedish origin since the Reformation.

“We are leaving the past behind us and focusing on what we have in common, that we can together go out and help people,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

Although the ecumenical service on Monday marked a reconciliation, there are still major doctrinal differences between the churches, on subjects like the role of women in the church and the Eucharist.                       NY Times

From Conflict to Communion: Catholics and Lutherans Will Recall Reformation

Nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a German church, beginning the Protestant Reformation that led millions to break with the Roman Catholic Church and ushered in more than a century of conflict and war.

On Monday, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis will participate in a joint Lutheran-Catholic worship service in Sweden this October, kicking off a series of events planned for 2017 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

The effort to mend relations with Protestants has been on the agenda of many popes before Francis, but it is a delicate endeavor. The worship service in Sweden was billed by its sponsors, the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation, as a “commemoration,” not as a “celebration,” in order to avoid any inappropriate note of triumphalism. Some Catholics have criticized the notion of a pope celebrating the anniversary of a schism.

Francis addressed the troubled history between the Christian churches as he led an ecumenical vespers service at a basilica in Rome on Monday to mark the closing day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. He appealed for forgiveness for “the sin of our divisions, an open wound in the Body of Christ.”

He added that “when together the Christians of different churches listen to the word of God and try to put it in practice, they achieve important steps toward unity.”

The year 2017 is also the 50th anniversary of the start of an international dialogue between Catholic and Lutheran theologians. The dialogue produced a significant document in 1999, the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” which established a common understanding on core questions about sin and salvation. In 2013, the two bodies published a joint study document, “From Conflict to Communion.”

Dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics has been “on the front burner” of both churches for years, and has resulted in more significant progress than many other ecumenical initiatives, said Michael Root, an expert on and participant in Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, and a professor of systematic theology at Catholic University of America, in Washington.

He said it was notable that the joint worship service would be in Sweden.

“There’s been a great recognition that particularly the Scandinavian Lutherans have a greater affinity for the Catholic world than the Germans or Americans,” Professor Root said. “They kept a more traditional church structure and style, and oddly enough, because there are virtually no Catholics in Sweden, it makes relations easier. There’s no history of competition and no history of warfare.”

Despite historic strides, Catholics and Lutherans are still officially barred from receiving communion in each other’s churches. Francis stirred up a controversy last year when he visited a Lutheran church in Rome and, during a question-and-answer session, suggested to a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic man that perhaps, if her conscience permitted, she could receive communion in her husband’s church.

“I wouldn’t ever dare to allow this, because it’s not my competence,” Francis told the woman, according to news reports, then added: “One baptism, one Lord, one faith. Talk to the Lord and then go forward. I don’t dare to say anything more.”

The joint service, to be held at the cathedral in Lund on Oct. 31, is sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation, the global umbrella for 72 million Lutherans in 98 countries, and the Roman Catholic Church. The service will be led by Pope Francis and both the president and the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation.

The Rev. Martin Junge, the general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, said in a statement, “By working towards reconciliation between Lutherans and Catholics, we are working towards justice, peace and reconciliation in a world torn apart by conflict and violence.”

The two churches released a liturgical guide last month, “Common Prayer,” to be used in commemorations of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. A website for Catholic traditionalists, Rorate Caeli, pronounced some of the prayers “scandalous,” claiming they extolled Martin Luther.                   NYTimes

A group of Lutherans have received Holy Communion at the Vatican after meeting Pope Francis, according to reports coming out of Rome.

Ruth Gledhill Contributing Editor 22 January 2016

A group of Lutherans have received Holy Communion at the Vatican after meeting Pope Francis, according to reports coming out of Rome.

The Lutherans from Finland, led by Bishop Samuel Salmi of Oulu, indicated by the traditional method of crossing their arms over their chests that they should not be offered the sacrament at Mass in the Basilica. But the priests went ahead and gave it to them regardless, Edward Pentin in Rome reported for NCRegister.

A youth choir from Finland also sang at the Mass.

The report first emerged via the Finnish Finnish news agency Kotimaa, in Estonian.

"Catholics shared the Eucharist. I also got to be part of it," said Bishop Salmi, who made it clear the Catholic priests had known who the Lutherans were so they had not been invited to partake by mistake. He also spoke of the Pope's opponents who oppose any move towards relaxing the rules on who can receive Communion.

Bishop Salmi has previously challenged Catholic tradition. In 2011 he argued for gay people to have "full rights" in the Lutheran Church.

The Mass took place during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, being celebrated this week by churches around the world. In his address at his weekly audience, Pope Francis referred to these celebrations and said: "This Week of Prayer invites us to reflect on, and bear witness to, our unity in Christ as God's People. All the baptised, reborn to new life in Christ, are brothers and sisters, despite our divisions. Through Baptism we have been charged, as Saint Peter tells us, 'to proclaim the mighty works of the one who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.' During this Week of Prayer, let us ask the Lord to help all Christians to grow in that unity which is greater than what divides us. Together, may we respond to his call to share with others, especially with the poor and forgotten of our world, the gift of divine mercy which we ourselves have received."

The Pope said last year a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic should "talk to the Lord" before receiving Holy Communion. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, later countered suggestions that this meant the Pope approved of intercommunion with Lutherans. 

Under Canon 844 of the Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law, the Eucharist is to be given to Catholics in a state of grace. Non-Catholics who request Communion and are from Churches approved by the Catholic Church as holding the same faith on the Eucharist, such as the Orthodox, are allowed to receive. Lutherans, along with members of the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion, are not in this group because they do not as a Church believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

In 2003, the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the time a member of the Church of England, received Communion from Pope John Paul II in Rome. Also in 2003, Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical Ecclesia De Eucharistia: "While it is never legitimate to concelebrate in the absence of full Communion, the same is not true with respect to the administration of the Eucharist under special circumstances, to individual persons belonging to Churches or Ecclesial Communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church. In this case, in fact, the intention is to meet a grave spiritual need for the eternal salvation of an individual believer, not to bring about an intercommunion which remains impossible until the visible bonds of ecclesial communion are fully re-established."

After leaving Downing Street, Blair converted to Catholicism, uniting the family in one Church. His wife Cherie is a cradle Catholic and their children have been raised Catholic.     CT